Home Foundry Advice

[Greg Q]

Greetings fellas...

The urge to try metal casting is upon me. I read the thread listing local suppliers so I think I'm up to speed on that aspect. What kind of burner to make? I understand the waste oil units are hot, but stink and roar. What alternatives are there?

(I'd like to be able to make some cast iron pieces immediately, and later aluminium and perhaps bronze too)

As an alternative, are there any Melbourne area home foundry guys that would be willing to do a few iron parts for me?

Thanks

Greg

[Dave J]

Rob Wilson told me that you can melt cast with 2 bottles and burners. He has been doing it for a while and was really helpful when I asked a few questions about casting.
This is his latest.
New Furnace Build ,,, Cupola (http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=4727.0)

He is also a member here.

Dave

[neksmerj]

Hi Greg,

You could try Melbourne Aluminium & Iron Lacework at 452 Heidelberg Rd, Fairfield.
Tel 9489 5100

Wrought Iron Melbourne, Australia - Melbourne Aluminium & Iron Lacework (http://www.melbournelacework.com.au/default.htm)

I have often been tempted to call in and see what facilities they have, and where their foundry is, but haven't.

I know for aluminium, there is a place in Culverlands Rd, Heidelberg Heights. I have been there, but can't recall the name. Can find out if you need it.

Ken

[Stustoys]

wow Greg, In at the deep end. You can use coke and forced air. How big a part are you thinking of? would it be easier to machine from solid?
I've read a few books on this and want to try it myself one day.
Good luck

Stuart

[RayG]

Hi GQ,

I'm using lpg, with a home made flame thrower normally aspirated burner, but i'm about half way through upgrading to forced air lpg burner, so that I can do cast iron.

I post some pictures of the setup in this thread if you like.

While I would be happy to offer to do some cast iron parts for you, it's a bit premature at the moment.. in a couple of weeks it hopefully will be a different story.

Regards
Ray

[Greg Q]

Hi Boys...

Ken, that guy in H.H. does (I think) only non-ferrous. I called some mob in Fairfield last year and they didn't want to know about onesey-twosey jobs.

Stuart...I could machine from the solid if i actually had any working machines instead of this real-life exploded diagram that I laughingly call my shop. But a couple of the needed parts just lend themselves to cast.

(These are mostly parts for the Perrin mill project, but I'd also like to cast up a couple of DRO attachment brackets for my Deckel time permitting)

GQ

[Durdge39]

Hi Greg

I have also been pondering the avenue of a home foundry. While I was looking into a small forced air charcoal furnace for melting the scraps of 2024 alclad from work into small ingots for machining into other things, I came across this website:

melting metal in a home foundry, backyard metalcasting, metal casting (http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/)

The site isn't the prettiest to look at, but he has some good info on ally, bronze and iron casting, using relatively simple materials. He has even made his own metal lathe by casting all the needed bits from ally! A good read.

Cheers, Tom.

[neksmerj]

Greg,

Here's another foundry to try. It's in Coburg. That's half a cut lunch from your joint.
Alan Beckwith Macbro Pty. Ltd. (http://www.australianfoundries.com.au/beckwith/)

They say "We will make anything".

Other places are either in Campbellfield or up in Dandenong. That's a full cut lunch away plus drinks.

Ken

[Stustoys]

Greg,
Nothing leans itself to 1500C+ ;) lol
Stuart

[Pete F]

Greg, when we were looking at the castings of the camel back edges didn't some local foundries come up in that exploration. From what I understand CI is a whole level up from casting, say, aluminium. I know there are foundries that can be supplied with a pattern and they'll cast just the one.

Pete

[Greg Q]

The foundry that Mike has used for Al-bronze will do cast iron, but through their New Zealand branch (!). Of course that means that a simple hand-sized part costs $100 each.

I'll keep looking for a cheaper deal.

[kwijibo99]

A mate of mine had a crack at home casting cast iron for a scale down stationary engine he designed and built.
He managed to make up a lot of the pieces for his engine but when he came to machine them he encountered a lot of porosity and other defects in his otherwise fine looking castings.
He used a coke blast furnace to melt cast iron scrap, mostly old Victa cylinders, and this worked very well but the bigest problem he encountered was getting the correct ratio of limestone and other fluxes so as to slag out all the impurties.
After quite a few tries he decided it was simply not worth the effort, and this bloke is no shirk, it took him the better part of three years to design the engine and make all the patterns and he is the type of bloke who likes to do as much as he can himself.
He ended up taking his patterns to Billman's Foundry in Castlemaine, Victoria ( Billman's Foundry, Castlemaine - Cast Iron, Bronze, Aluminium, Fountains, Bollards, Light Columns, Garden, Street & Park Furniture (http://www.billmansfoundry.com.au/) ) who produced all the castings for him. They were very good and devoted quite a bit of time to showing him the entire casting process. He got a discount on his first couple of engines because he supplied all of the cast iron scrap for them.
I'm not saying don't have a go yourself but cast iron is is one of the most difficult things to cast and may not be the best place to start out with home foundering. If you do end up getting the castings done for you then they might be worth contacting.
(I have no affiliation to them, just forwarding on a recommendation from a bloke I trust)
Cheers,
Greg.

[Toggy]

I recently had 4 lathe backplates cast up by Billmans at Castlemaine. They were for my TOS lathe which has a different style of backplate and have a much larger boss. I didn't deal directly with them; but via a pattern maker I know.
I made and supplied the patterns (1 X 6.5" & 1 X 8") They must have been OK because I never saw them again.

Cost was $50 each. Apparently they charge $70 per hour labour plus cost per kg of material used.

I was told that they are not over thrilled with doing small one off's.

I haven't machined the casting yet; but externally they look excellent.

Ken

[Greg Q]

A mate of mine had a crack at home casting cast iron for a scale down stationary engine he designed and built.
He managed to make up a lot of the pieces for his engine but when he came to machine them he encountered a lot of porosity and other defects in his otherwise fine looking castings.
He used a coke blast furnace to melt cast iron scrap, mostly old Victa cylinders, and this worked very well but the bigest problem he encountered was getting the correct ratio of limestone and other fluxes so as to slag out all the impurties.
After quite a few tries he decided it was simply not worth the effort, and this bloke is no shirk, it took him the better part of three years to design the engine and make all the patterns and he is the type of bloke who likes to do as much as he can himself.
He ended up taking his patterns to Billman's Foundry in Castlemaine, Victoria ( Billman's Foundry, Castlemaine - Cast Iron, Bronze, Aluminium, Fountains, Bollards, Light Columns, Garden, Street & Park Furniture (http://www.billmansfoundry.com.au/) ) who produced all the castings for him. They were very good and devoted quite a bit of time to showing him the entire casting process. He got a discount on his first couple of engines because he supplied all of the cast iron scrap for them.
I'm not saying don't have a go yourself but cast iron is is one of the most difficult things to cast and may not be the best place to start out with home foundering. If you do end up getting the castings done for you then they might be worth contacting.
(I have no affiliation to them, just forwarding on a recommendation from a bloke I trust)
Cheers,
Greg.

Thanks or the link Greg. I appreciate your friend's story too. Since I posted this I have been thinking about substituting aluminium for the larger pieces. They are non-structural, simply end plates which house bearings for a leadscrew. I need to do some more research, and give the phone a workout I guess.

I may need to examine my first impulse which is always to tool up to do it myself.

I have more than enough clean cast scrap here to get these parts made, so perhaps I'll be making patterns this week.

GQ

[neksmerj]

Greg,

The mob I spoke of earlier, for aluminium casting is
LA & WF Burns Pty Ltd
23 Culverlands Rd.
Heidelberg West
Tel 9457 1479

I had some dealings with them in my other life.

Ken

[Greg Q]

Ta Ken. I'm home Monday if y'all* want to drop in.

*I've been listening to country music tonight. Just to off my 18 yr old daughter

[neksmerj]

You're on old buddy, I'll call ya ass first. Tis time for the next general meeting.

Happy Muver's day.

Kennefff

[RayG]

Hi GQ,

I could post my furnace design, which is based on a converted davy water pressure tank, but it's probably more useful to give you the general design guidelines.

Most designs you will find on line are based on fire brick or cast pyrocrete type designs, a better design approach is to go for low thermal mass and concentrate on lowest thermal conductivity. That way it gets up to temperature quicker and it's easier to get to higher temperatures.

All you need is a sufficiently thick layer of cerachem or kaowool, it's available in various ratings, for cast iron, Cerachem 1425.

A cast pyrocrete plinth for the crucible to stand on and a cast pyrocrete burner inlet are probably the only pyrocrete parts.

I've been running a normally aspirated lpg gas burner which works fine for bronze, it can melt 1 kilo of bronze in 7 minutes. But not enough for cast iron, so I'm part way through upgrading the burner to forced air, which should be enough for cast iron. The problem is the flare on the end of the burner where it goes into the furnace proper, I've now got a few scraps of titanium (good for 1700C) sheet that will form the hot end of the burner.

However, getting the crucible of molten bronze or cast iron is the easy part.. you then need crucible tongs, plan of attack to carry out the pouring safely, proper protective gear, full face shield, foundrymans gloves, good leather foundry jacket. If cast iron, you also need welding type shielding. Don't forget to tie up the dog, and keep the kids inside.

You need to make up the pattern, design and make the cores (if any) and figure out sprue placements and make a cope and drag... and on it goes... I recommend the CW Ammen book on sand casting as a good starting point.

Amazon.com: The Complete Handbook of Sand Casting (9780830610433): C. Ammen: Books


However, unless you want to build a muller and do a lot of mucking around with green sand recipes, I recommend that you forget green sand and buy a bucket of petrobond, you get better surface finish and more consistent results, although the initial cost is higher it's worth every penny.

I think it was BT who said that there's something inherently fascinating about pouring molten metal, he's right. Plus it's good wholesome entertainment for the whole family...

A friend remarked, when I explained what the bronze casting stuff was about, and his comment was a dismissive, "Yep, the Greeks were doing all that, 2000 years ago..."

He's right, it's not rocket science, but it does take a bit of planning and a bit of care.

Regards
Ray

PS. Forgot to add, the Cerachem is coated with IR reflecting material, I used ITC-100 ceramic coating The final construction is fragile, but more than adequate for home casting. If you do get holes in the coating, it's easily repaired.

Here are few basic design constants.
1. The flame temperature for propane is 1990 Degrees C
2. Propane will generate 12.9 KWh per Kg
3. You need 12.3 cubic meters of air per Kg of propane
4. The thermal conductivity of Cerachem 1425 is 0.15 W/mk

[RayG]

Hi GQ,

Here's a few tools for handling the crucible, the lifting tongs on the right are only ever used to lift the crucible out of the furnace. The crucible holder with the radiation shield for pouring is ok for small crucibles, but bigger ones you might need a more complex arrangement to control the pour. Maybe even a two man setup for larger pours. The extended handles at the end can give you fine control on the pouring rate if you need it. The shield has a flat spot, so that it sits stably at the right height for the crucible. The tongs in the middle are charging tongs for adding additional material to the crucible prior to pouring. The smaller tools on the left are skimmers for removing slag and stuff floating on the surface.


http://www.backsaw.net/pics/castingtools.jpg


Here's a video I found of a bronze pour, that Josh and I did a while ago. The surplus bronze is poured into ingot moulds, lately I've taken to pouring cylindrical ingots, which are very handy for turning small parts.

YouTube - Bronze Pour

Regards
Ray

[Stustoys]

That doesn't look very hot ;)
And its what? about 600C short of iron?

Great video Ray

Stuart

[Dave J]

Nice video Ray.:2tsup:
A mate of mine worked in scrap melting plant up here where he used to control the ladle. He gave me a brand new long coat that they are issued their, that are flame retardant etc, and told me they where good to keep warm fishing and at parties,LOL. I would expect them to be expensive new.

One day I will get a furnace to try it out.

Dave

[RayG]

Hi Dave,
Those full cover leather aprons are perfect for this sort of stuff, so keep it handy, those jackets we got are leather heat resistant something or other from Elliot, if I recall correctly, only we got about 3 sizes too big! .. The gloves I got from the local BOC dealer, they have them listed as foundrymans gloves.

Which brings up an important point, and that is the practice runs with the crucible handling should be done wearing gloves and the full safety gear, because it's much harder to handle the tongs with gloves than without. Don't forget to make sure the area is clear of trip and fall hazards.

Regards
Ray
PS... Stuart, cast iron would probably be another 300 degrees or so hotter, that bronze is around 1100C or so. :)

[Dave J]

Hi Ray,
I just had a look at that coat and it's not leather it's more like a fibre type material and is green in colour and weighs 3-4 kg. It has buttons to do up around your neck and comes down about 8-10 inches off the floor. There are no tags on it to say what it's made out of and the packet is long gone. He said they where to stop the heat of the ladle when poring.

Dave

[RayG]

Hi Dave,

Good quality safety gear for foundry work is hard to come by, I can't guess what the material might be, but sounds like it's exactly what you need. No pockets, button up to the neck and full coverage on arms and legs.

Maybe it's one of these.. Weld Wool Furnace Coat - Protective Clothing - Furnace, Weld Wool - Elliotts Product Detail (http://www.elliottaustralia.com/FMC1500L/Weld-Wool-Furnace-Coat/pd.php)

Regards
Ray

[Dave J]

That looks pretty much identical to the one I have. The mate said they where worth something like $300 each 15 years ago. Come to think of it, it's been in the cupboard for a long time. LOL

Dave

[RayG]

Hi Dave,

I want one of these...

http://www.elliottaustralia.com/productimages/APH27GRV.jpg

Scare the neighbours, if nothing else...

Regards
Ray

[Dave J]

I think they would work great, you don't know any astronauts do you? The may have an old suit laying around, LOL

What sort of cost are they? The mate also gave me a few clear face shields that they used and where made of thicker plastic than the type you normally see getting sold. The only trouble is they are scratched up now after years of use their not much good.
He worked at comsteel where they melt down the scrap to send overseas.
He said it was a good job and liked it because you sat and watched TV or played cards between each ladle load then just got dressed in you heat proof gear and went out to control the cranes to empty it. I would have loved to go and watch, but they where strict on who entered the plant. He did grad me some good 50mm round etc steel that came in as scrap because they sold it to the employees at a low rate.

Dave

[Blu_Rock]

Interesting posts Ray and great video. Casting aluminium is on my (long) list of things to do and your info will come in handy.